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For those who are deep in the feels about the closure of Lloyd Center mall, perhaps spending some time pondering visual art will help.
Lloyd Center Journal is a photo essay on the soon-to-be-demolished mall on view for the rest of the week at PLACE landscape architecture firm. Bask in the interesting shadow patterns of the spiral staircase, the long-dry fountain called Capitalism, and the natural light pouring in through the glass ceiling above the ice rink. Lloyd Center will close to the public Aug. 8, according to developer Urban Renaissance Group, despite two pending appeals of the unanimous city decision to approve the redevelopment.
The artist behind the 73 prints hanging on the walls is Horatio Hung-Yan Law. Law is better known for his installations and public art—he’s the creator of The Fifth Wind sculpture at Gateway Discovery Park, for example, and many installations in the Seattle area—but he picked up photography about seven years ago.
“A lot of the stores are gone, but what I discovered is I can see the bones of the mall much easier, the architecture, the design,” Law says. “Even the empty stores, to me, they are very interesting.”
Law grew up in Hong Kong and New York and has no sentimental attachment to the idea of a suburban-style enclosed mall, he says. But after spending four or five months shooting photos at Lloyd Center, he not only began appreciating the architecture but also the way the design fosters community, primarily through the center ice rink.
“As a public artist, that earned my admiration for the mall itself,” he says.
Photographing Lloyd Center did not change Law’s opinion around the demolition and renovation other than to underscore the “wastefulness” of it, he says. The last renovation—the one that begat the three-story suspended staircase—cost $50 million and happened just a decade ago.
“This is Portland. Portland is not about that, because we talk about green everywhere,” Law says. “It’s not good optics to me as a city.”
GO: Lloyd Center Journal at the gallery at PLACE, 735 NW 18th Ave., place.la/placemaking/lloyd-center-journal-horatio-hung-yan-law. 10 am–6 pm Monday–Friday, through May 1. Closing reception 5:30 pm Friday, May 1. Free.
